Constant Velocity (CV) Drive Shafts
 

My daughter's 1990 BII has the CV type drive shaft. I replaced the original one with a wrecking yard part about 6 months ago. Now this one is showing signs of failure too.

Ford no longer carries the repair kit or the drive shaft. Does anyone know of a source? There is a procedure in some service manuals for replacing the ball bearings and races, but I cannot find the parts.

The CV type have flat flanges at each end that attach by means of four 12mm bolts. I would like to do a swap, but the other types of drive shafts I have seen all connect through a U-joint which is incompatible with the square flange fitting.

I am interested in what others have done to deal with this. Thanks.

Keith Wagoner

When mine went, I went to a local driveline shop and had him make a single cardan U-joint shaft (with the flat flanges), so it was a direct replacement. Cost ~$200 at the time. It shouldn't be difficult, most driveline shops I called, all I had to tell them was I had a BII, and they could practically finish the sentence for me, so most good shops will have already made them. There's at least one on the net that has been selling them over the internet (~$200 when I got mine, so it wasn't any cheaper than a local shop for me).

Okay, I'm lost. I've seen rebuild kits for the *P.O.S.* GKN/CV-type shafts and entire replacement shafts listed online. I've also seen single and double-cardan u-joint (Dana) style shafts - as well as places like mrshorty mentioned. Personally, when my GKN shaft goes, I won't replace it with the same type as I already have a u-joint type spare :)

Got ours from Advance Auto, ran about $200ish plus refundable core. Normal U-Joints at each end, with a slip joint at the front part. (flat mount built in, quickest install I've done yet on this thing)

Works like a charm, and the binding metal crunch sound vanished.

You'll need to measure the drive shaft BEFORE you remove the former one, and use that measurement...along with checking for the month/year when the truck was made...and that should get you a match.

Seems ford used a couple of different lengths back in the day, so it's best to prepare to get the correct one.

S-

i went with the single cardan U-joint shaft (with the flat flanges), from napa on my 87... lot easier finding u-joints than the cv repair kit, and i imagine cheaper as well.